The worldwide impact of the novel Coronavirus and COVID-19, has been gaining momentum over the last few weeks, and has particularly accelerated in western countries this week. More and more upcoming events and meet-ups are being cancelled or postponed. So, even though we are still a few months away from C++ on Sea, we feel it best to make a statement at this point.
Right now it's still hard to extrapolate out to June. Until recently we've been optimistic everything will be clearer by then. This week has thrown that into doubt.
As of now, we're still planning to go ahead. However the situation is fragile and it would be irresponsible not to warn about the possibility of cancellation in the coming days or weeks.
If you have already bought tickets you would, of course, receive a full refund in the event of cancellation. If you would prefer to cancel proactively, we will waive the cancellation fee for a full refund. If you're happy to hold on to your tickets, please defer any non-refundable travel plans (if possible) until we have better clarity.
We will (hopefully temporarily) close ticket sales. That doesn't mean we have cancelled (yet), and will reopen if and when we feel it is reasonable to do so. If you were looking to buy tickets please subscribe for updates - either on the email list, or the RSS feed.
If you are a speaker, sponsor, volunteer or anyone else involved with the conference, the above applies to your travel plans. Again, if you would feel more comfortable pulling out proactively, please let us know. At time of this writing nobody has pulled out - but I can imagine a number are worrying about this.
We would still like to go ahead with the conference if reasonably possible, but people's health and safety must come first and we will take whatever action is appropriate when things become clearer.